Materials Letters 64 (2010) 23602362

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Materials Letters
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / m a t l e t

Poisson's ratio of hollow particle lled composites

Ronald Poveda, Nikhil Gupta , Maurizio Porri
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 28 April 2010
Accepted 22 July 2010
Available online 25 July 2010
Keywords:
Composite materials
Elastic properties
Porosity
Syntactic foam

a b s t r a c t
The present study is focused on the experimental measurement of the Poisson's ratio of glass hollow particle
lled composites called syntactic foams. The effect of hollow particle wall thickness and volume fraction on
the Poisson's ratio of the composites is investigated. Results show that the Poisson's ratio of the composites is
lower than that of the neat vinyl ester resin used as the matrix material. Despite being a fundamental elastic
constant, a reliable value of the Poisson's ratio of the various types of composites is not readily available.
These experimental results can be useful in benchmarking available theoretical models and guiding
modeling efforts on functionally graded composites.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Syntactic foams are lightweight multi-phase particulate composites
that have a wide variety of applications in marine and aerospace
structures. These composites are synthesized by dispersing hollow
particles in a matrix material, such as epoxy or vinyl ester resins [1].
Methods of tailoring the mechanical properties of syntactic foams
include selection of appropriate matrix and particle materials, particle
wall thickness, and volume fractions [2,3]. Correlation of these
parameters with the mechanical properties of syntactic foams has
been a focus of recent experimental and theoretical investigations [46].
Experimental studies have shown that the modulus of epoxy or vinyl
ester matrix syntactic foams can be tailored within a range of 13 GPa
and their strength can be controlled in the range of 30110 GPa [7,8].
However, these available studies have not attempted to measure
Poisson's ratio.
Variation in Poisson's ratio with reinforcement volume fraction
and orientation has been experimentally and theoretically studied for
some ber reinforced composites [9,10]. Measurement of Poisson's
ratio has also been conducted for restorative dental composites
[11,12]. In these studies, dependence of Poisson's ratio on the
composition of the composite material is observed, highlighting the
need for developing a comprehensive understanding of Poisson's ratio
for other engineered composites. In syntactic foams, the volume
fraction and wall thickness of microballoons can simultaneously affect
the composites' elastic constants. However, due to the absence of
experimental values, theoretical studies tend to assume Poisson's
ratio to be constant in the range of 0.3 to 0.35 [13].

Lack of availability of Poisson's ratio values is a severe limitation

for modeling efforts [14]. In recent years, increasing interest in
functionally graded materials has resulted in the development of
theoretical models for such materials [6]. However, although a
gradient in the elastic modulus is assumed, these models usually
assume a constant value of Poisson's ratio in the absence of
experimental data, which considerably limits their scope. The present
study is aimed at the experimental measurement of the Poisson's ratio
of vinyl ester-glass microballoon syntactic foams with respect to the
microballoon volume fraction and wall thickness. The experimental
measurements are compared with predictions obtained from a
theoretical model available in the published literature [15].
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Constituent materials
Vinyl ester resin and methyl ethyl ketone peroxide (US
Composites, FL) are used as the matrix resin and catalyst,
respectively. The catalyst is used in 1.25% by volume of the resin.
Four types of glass microballoons (Table 1), obtained from 3 M, MN
are used in 30, 40, 50, and 60 vol.% to fabricate sixteen grades of
syntactic foams. The ratio of the inner to outer radius of
microballoons, called radius ratio (), is also reported in Table 1.
The radius ratio is calculated based on a glass density of 2540 kg/m3
and the nominal particle density provided by the manufacturer
using the procedure mentioned in [2].
2.2. Composite fabrication

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 718 260 3080; fax: +1 718 260 3532.
E-mail address: ngupta@poly.edu (N. Gupta).
0167-577X/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matlet.2010.07.063

Syntactic foam slabs are fabricated by stir mixing weighted

quantities of microballoons in vinyl ester resin. The slurry is poured
into the aluminum molds of 230 152 15 mm3 dimensions. The molds

R. Poveda et al. / Materials Letters 64 (2010) 23602362

Table 1
Properties of microballoons used in fabricating syntactic foam specimens.

2361

Table 2
Theoretical and experimental densities of tested syntactic foam grades.

Microballoon type

Density
(kg/m3)

Mean diameter
(m)

Wall thickness
(m)

Radius ratio
()

Material type

Theoretical
density (kg/m3)

Experimental
density (kg/m3)

Void content
(%)

S22
S32
K37
K46

220
320
370
460

35
40
40
40

0.521
0.878
1.052
1.289

0.970
0.956
0.947
0.936

VE
VE220-30
VE220-40
VE220-50
VE220-60
VE320-30
VE320-40
VE320-50
VE320-60
VE370-30
VE370-40
VE370-50
VE370-60
VE460-30
VE460-40
VE460-50
VE460-60

878.7
784.6
690.5
596.4
908.7
824.6
740.5
656.4
923.7
844.6
765.5
686.4
950.7
880.6
810.5
740.4

1141.9
860.1
787.9
656.3
590.9
873.7
791.5
690.4
598.2
915.6
780.1
743.5
641.5
910.9
781.9
746.3
632.9

2.1
0
4.9
0.9
3.9
4.0
6.8
8.9
0.9
7.6
2.9
6.5
0.2
3.6
4.5
1.1

are then placed on a vibrating platform for 10 min to degas the mixture.
The composites are then cured at room temperature for 48 h and then at
100C for 2 h. The composites' nomenclature displays the microballoon
density followed by their volume fraction; for example, VE220-30
indicates a composite containing microballoons of 220 kg/m3 density in
30 vol.%. Fig. 1 shows microstructure of two different grades of syntactic
foams.
2.3. Poisson's ratio measurement
Two specimens, of 127 12.7 5 mm3 nominal dimensions, of
each type of syntactic foam are prepared. The specimens are cut using
an MK Diamond tile saw and then polished. The linear dimensions and
weight are measured for each specimen to calculate the density,
which is reported in Table 2. The theoretical density values are
calculated using the rule of mixtures and vinyl ester density of
1160 kg/m3. A comparison of the theoretical and experimental
densities provides an estimate of interstitial air voids in the matrix
as given in Table 2, assuming no microballoons are fractured during
the fabrication process.
Both specimens are tested under tensile loading conditions at least
ve times in the elastic region to provide a set of ten measurements.
The tests are conducted using an Instron 4469 test system at a
constant displacement rate of 0.1 mm/min. Each specimen is loaded
to a force of 300 N. In order to measure the Poisson's ratio of each
specimen tested, a bi-directional precision strain gage rosette (Vishay
Micro-Measurements) is bonded to each specimen, as shown in Fig. 2
(a). The strain gages are connected to a Vishay 2120B strain gage
conditioner. The strain gage output is recorded using a 4-channel
Tektronix TDS2014B digital oscilloscope and then transferred to a
computer. The schematic representation of the test setup is shown in
Fig. 2(b).
3. Results and discussion
The Poisson's ratio (m) and the Young's modulus (Em) of neat vinyl
ester resin specimens are measured as the rst step. The value of m is
found to be 0.351, while Em is measured to be 2.92 GPa. This value is used
to estimate the Poisson's ratio of various syntactic foam composites (c)

using a recent theoretical model, where the material properties of the

microballoon glass material are taken as Emb = 60 GPa and mb = 0.21
[15]. This model is also capable of predicting the elastic modulus of
composites, which has already been extensively validated with
experimental results [2]. Fig. 3 shows variation in the relative Poisson's
ratio with respect to the microballoon radius ratio for different
microballoon volume fractions () in the composite. This gure
shows that increasing results in a decrease of the Poisson's ratio of
the composite. In addition, the wall thickness of the particles has a
prominent, although non-monotonic, effect on the composites' Poisson's ratio. In most practical cases, thin walled microballoons are used in
syntactic foams to benet from the low density of the resulting
composites, leading to be in the range of 0.91. In this range of ,
the variation in the composites' Poisson's ratio is strongly dependent on
. This model assumes that all the particles present in the syntactic foam
are of equal size and have the same wall thickness. However, in general,
particle size and wall thickness vary over a wide range in the actual
specimens. Therefore, a recent extension of this model has been used to
account for such polydispersivity [15]. The extended model is also
capable of describing the undesired air voids entrapped in the matrix
resin during composite fabrication.
The results of the experimental measurement of the syntactic foam
Poisson's ratio are presented in Table 3. Standard deviations are also
provided with the mean values in this table. The Poisson's ratios of all
composites are lower than that of the neat resin and may be as small
as 85% of the neat resin. Within the composites that contain the same
type of particles, an increase in the microballoon volume fraction
results in a decrease in Poisson's ratio. It is also noted that the particle
volume fraction has a stronger effect on the composites' Poisson's

Fig. 1. Scanning electron micrographs of vinyl ester matrix syntactic foams containing (a) 30 and (b) 60 vol.% glass microballoons of 220 kg/m3 density.

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R. Poveda et al. / Materials Letters 64 (2010) 23602362

Table 3
Comparison of theoretically calculated and experimentally measured Poisson's ratio of
syntactic foams.

Fig. 2. (a) A specimen of the VE320-60 composite, mounted with strain gage rosette,
used in the Poisson's ratio measurement and (b) a schematic representation of the
experimental data acquisition set up (not to scale).

Material
type

Poisson's ratio
Theoretical

Experimental

VE
VE220-30
VE220-40
VE220-50
VE220-60
VE320-30
VE320-40
VE320-50
VE320-60
VE370-30
VE370-40
VE370-50
VE370-60
VE460-30
VE460-40
VE460-50
VE460-60

0.324
0.319
0.303
0.301
0.324
0.317
0.305
0.294
0.330
0.311
0.312
0.298
0.332
0.319
0.310
0.309

0.351 0.011
0.336 0.034
0.317 0.004
0.318 0.009
0.295 0.022
0.338 0.016
0.336 0.014
0.325 0.012
0.303 0.018
0.338 0.016
0.315 0.009
0.311 0.013
0.298 0.012
0.307 0.012
0.373 0.064
0.323 0.045
0.302 0.025

Difference
(%)

3.8
0.5
5.1
2.2
4.3
5.9
6.6
3.1
2.4
1.2
0.6
0.1
7.5
17.0
4.1
2.2

Neat vinyl ester resin.

data are compared to the predictions obtained from a recent theoretical

model. The comparison shows that the Poisson's ratio of the composite
varies with the wall thickness and volume fraction of microballoons.
Theoretical predictions are within 7.5% of the experimental values for
most composite types. Availability of Poisson's ratio of composites and
validated theoretical models can help the modeling efforts related to
functionally graded composites.

ratio than the particle wall thickness. The difference in the Poisson's
ratio of composites containing 30 and 60 vol.% particles is about 10%
in most cases. Although the difference is small, a clear trend can be
observed in the mean values.
The experimentally measured Poisson's ratio values are compared
with the values calculated from the theoretical model in [15]. The
geometrical and mechanical properties of the constituent materials
used in the calculation are consistent with those taken in [15]. The
estimated interstitial void volume fraction values, presented in Table
2, are used in this calculation. It is observed that the theoretical and
experimental values differ less than 7.5% for most compositions. The
difference is larger only for VE460-40. These results show that the
Poisson's ratio of composites depends on the composition and cannot
be assumed to be the same as that of the neat resin.

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation grant

CMMI 0726723 and the Ofce of Naval Research through the grant
N00014-07-1-0419. The authors thank 3 M, MN for providing microballoons and relevant technical information, Matteo Aureli for his help
in obtaining analytical results, and Andres Donoso and Alessandro Betti
for help in material fabrication and specimen preparation.

4. Conclusions

References

Poisson's ratio values of a variety of syntactic foams are characterized

in this work. Hollow particles of four different wall thicknesses are used
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composite. Results show that the value of Poisson's ratio varies with
microballoon content and wall thickness across all sixteen grades.
Poisson's ratio generally decreases with increasing volume fraction. A
variation of the Poisson's ratio is also observed as the particle wall
thickness is varied and the volume fraction held constant. Experimental

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Fig. 3. Comparison of Poisson's ratio of the composite normalized to the value of the
matrix with respect to the radius ratio for different volume fractions.

Acknowledgments